Operation Martyr Soleimani

The al-Asad Airbase attack, codenamed Operation Martyr Soleimani, occurred at 2:00 AM on 7 January (5:30 PM ET on 6 January) 2020 when the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) fired over 12 ballistic missiles fired from Iranian soil, targeting two Iraqi military bases (the al-Asad and Erbil airbases), which were hosting US forces taking part in the fight against the Islamic State.

Background
In January 2020, the Persian Gulf crisis escalated when the United States assassinated Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and Popular Mobilization Forces deputy commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in an airstrike on an IRGC convoy at the Baghdad International Airport in Baghdad, Iraq. President Donald Trump and the Pentagon claimed that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks against US interests in the Middle East, having allegedly already directed a deadly rocket attack on the US K-1 Airbase in Kirkuk in December 2019. In the days following the 3 January assassination of Soleimani, Iran vowed harsh revenge against the United States. Trump responded by threatening to bomb 52 selected targets in Iran (including cultural sites) if Iran retaliated, escalating tensions further. On 7 January, Iran took the drastic step of declaring the US Department of Defense (including the US Armed Forces and Pentagon personnel) "terrorists", and, as tensions between the US and Iran escalated, Germany and Canada began to withdraw their forces from the country.

Attack
At 2:00 AM on 7 January, Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two American airbases in Iraq, targeting the al-Asad Air Base west of Baghdad and the Erbil Air Base in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Iranians then warned the US about a second barrage of missiles as the beginning of their "hard revenge" against the USA. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's advisor Saeed Jalili tweeted a picture of the Iranian flag, mocking Trump's tweeting of an American flag following Soleimani's assassination.